


Journey to the Land Where Formal Etiquette is Useless

by DoctorV, dogtier, orphan_account, pumpkinbortuqal



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-23
Updated: 2013-01-23
Packaged: 2017-11-12 17:44:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 17,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/493965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorV/pseuds/DoctorV, https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogtier/pseuds/dogtier, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account, https://archiveofourown.org/users/pumpkinbortuqal/pseuds/pumpkinbortuqal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While chasing his dog, Jake Harley finds himself tumbling into a most curious land. Adventure and romance awaits and only you, the reader, can determine the outcome!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. To the sea...

**Author's Note:**

> The entry for Team Alphachronism for the Collaborative Round of the Homestuck Shipping Olympics, 2012.
> 
> Please use the links provided at the end of each chapter to navigate, not the "next chapter" or "chapter index" buttons.

Splashing through the sand bar  
Talking by the campfire  
It's the simple things in life, like when and where  
We didn't have no internet  
But man I never will forget  
The way the moonlight shined upon his hair

-Lewis Carroll 

**Chapter 2**

The door seemed to open onto a vast sky.

It was white to the left and white to the right, and white like a bowl full of cream, and it wasn’t until it had swum into sight that Jake realized it all had been--

He shook his head hard. More of that and he’d start thinking in rhyming couplets for good. “When surrounded by nonsense the thing is to get hold of some good sense,” he said, and perceived that he was falling again. “Oh, balls. Well, the sea is white,” he reasoned to himself. “And Halley’s whiter. And I never was so small as this before, and Halley’s a growing dog, and this must be his fur. Falling into fur isn’t so bad. It can’t be worse than falling halfway down the center of the earth.”

This settled, he closed his eyes, hoping to go to sleep. If he’d left them open he would have had a better chance of avoiding the rocks.

He had no notion of how long it had been when he awoke, and for a minute his vision still swam too much to ascertain anything about his surroundings. Hoo boy. One more impact to the cranium and he’d be Phineas Gage.

There was a cold, wet sensation in his hair, and he batted at the area behind his head, trying to find Halley’s collar. Instead his hand collided with a wrist, and from there, groping upwards, a bony elbow, a corded bicep, and, swinging into his palm, a chin and mouth, which said, “What are you doing?”

“Uh,” Jake said, and sat up. He blinked away the dark spots in front of his eyes. “I thought you were my pet dog. Or maybe a rabbit.”

“Dirk Strider,” said the strange boy, straightening up. He looked about Jake’s age, tall, skinny, and outlandishly dressed, with his hair in spikes and his face awash in freckles. “But good eye there. I was... looking for something...” He stopped. There was something very unsuitable about confusion on his face. It passed quickly enough that Jake thought perhaps he’d imagined it, or misinterpreted it for an early form of the new and more natural determination. “I woke up here half an hour ago. You snore, in case you were wondering, like a fuckin’ lumber camp.”

“Jake English,” said Jake. He extended a hand. “What are you doing in Californ...” and looked up, at the vast sea ahead of him, brushing up gently against the sand. The sun was rising over it. In the distance a volcano punctuated the sky, and Jake gulped, and turned back to the boy. “How long have I been out of it anyway?”

“The queen’s coronation is tomorrow,” came another voice, and a small lizard appeared from where it had been hiding in a rocky grotto. It was well-attired in a waistcoat and tails, but was all over chimney soot. “If you don’t know when that is, you don’t know where anything is. Stands to reason.”

“What queen?” Jake demanded. He braced himself on Dirk’s shoulder and attempted to get to his feet, succeeding only in collapsing against the boy, who let out a grunt of surprise. ”Whoa. Sorry! I’m still trying to figure out which are my feet and which is the sand. Which you’d think would be less complicated than it frigging is. What queen?”

“He means the Queen of Tides. Don’t you?”

“I used to mean the Queen of Tides,” the lizard huffed. “Then I meant the Queen of Hearts. Now there’s been such a shuffle of meaning and signification that I don’t think I mean anything at all.”

“Well, we ought to go to the coronation, then,” Jake said brightly. “We’ll pursue this harebrained whippersnapper until we find Her Royal Whateverness and then we’ll probably have some ripping good times in the vein of--”

“No way,” Dirk said. “Do you know how many queens I have to deal with in my normal daily routine? I am up to my fuckin’ neck in queens, and they’re regal but they are not a comfortable immersive environment. I want to opt out.”

“Well, I refuse to be concussed into a fantasy land without having some kind of hijinks,” Jake snapped. “We are going to hunt something, Mr. Strider.”

“I didn’t say we weren’t,” Dirk said. “I said we wouldn’t be wasting our times on queens. I say we hunt for what I was looking for.”

Jake scowled at him. “You think just because you’re well-built and well-spoken and obnoxiously tall you can tell me what to do?”

“Okay,” Dirk said, with some caution, “there are a couple of things I want to unpack in that sentence--”

“Anyway, you can’t!” Jake said, hurriedly. “Do you even remember what you were looking for?”

Dirk grinned. “A snark.”

_________________

“A snark,” said the lizard, “is an emergency measure. This is hardly an emergency!”

“I think it is,” said Dirk. “C’mon, you feel it. Not you,” he said to the lizard. “You. English.”

“Harley.”

“Whatever. You get it. Something’s wrong here. A snark’s our ticket out.”

Jake smiled obligingly. “What the heck is a snark?”

“Small animal,” the boy said. He climbed up on a rock to get a better view of the coastline. “Very sarcastic. Occasionally a boojum. Ambitious. They fix what’s broken, steal what’s out of place, that kind of thing. You really never heard of a snark back in the nineteenth century?”

“I think so,” Jake said, dubiously. “Or I’ve heard of some animal of something like that description. Or something about it’s familiar. --I’m not from the nineteenth century,” he added with great umbrage. “Hah! A snark-hunting expedition it is. How do you hunt a snark? Pistol shot? Boat rides?”

“Thimbles, care, forks, and...” Dirk trailed off again, getting that lost expression. “Hope,” he said. “You’re supposed to seek it with hope. Now, why does that remind me of a trainwreck?”

“We’ll do all that we know and try all that we don’t,” Jake said delightedly. “Gosh!! A real ripsnorter. Well, what are we waiting for? We ought to go straight for...”

_________________

["...the sky."](http://archiveofourown.org/works/493965/chapters/1184851)

["...the sea."](http://archiveofourown.org/works/493965/chapters/1184837)


	2. Adventure Start

It may just sound all whack and corny  
Yes, it's awful, blasted boring  
Twisted fiction, sick addiction  
Well, gather 'round, children, zip it, listen

-Lewis Carroll, _Alice's Adventures In Wonderland_

**Chapter 1**

There was little a growing boy needed in the world other than his dog and the thrill of adventure. The fresh air of the jungle in his lungs and the warmth of a best friend at his side. Yes, Jake Harley's life was pretty much perfect. But while a boy may have been free to roam a man had responsibilities and as his sixteenth year loomed he knew it was time to step up. He packed his bags, tucking in the finest liberated treasures from his travels, and with Halley boarded a steamer headed back to America.

Crossing the Pacific was a dangerous proposition. Jake thought of himself as a brave fellow, made of steel and gumption but as he clutched his dog to his chest while the room tossed around him he almost gave in to blind panic. Luckily, before he could embarrass himself a swift blow by a falling light fixture upside the head rendered him unconscious.

It hurt quite a lot. Darkness closed in and he drifted. In his drifting he was rocked, held close by a kind old woman with long hair, silky and white as snow drifts who sang to him like he was a child and indeed he felt like a child in those delusions. And they had to be delusions, since there had never been a woman like that, only that cold clammy touch with scratching nails and hair as dark and snaggled as a den of serpents.

He spent some time drifting in and out of insensibility. Halley remained at his side, he was getting on in dog years but he was still quite spry and clever. Jake was glad for his help when he finally limped his way off the ship in San Francisco. California was not how he remembered it, but then again he had been very young when he had last touched these shores. He hitched a ride on a farmer's truck carrying oranges, crammed between crates with his bag and Halley. He peeled one of the fruits as they bumped along the road, digging in with relish and letting Halley lap the juice from his chin when he was done.

"Good dog," Jake said, scratching Halley's fuzzy ears. "Very good dog. Where would I be without you?"

He was dropped off at a split in the road that evening. There seemed to be no one near so he hoofed it for a bit before darkness drove him to settle in for the night. He was still plagued with the strange dreams that had come to him on the ship, faces familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, superimposed like the subject had moved mid-photograph.

The next day was hot and there was a lot of walking. This was always Jake's least favorite part of adventures. But on those at least he had had the excitement of what was to come when he reached the temple just over that hill. Now all he had was dread settling in the pit of his stomach. He remembered his childhood in shadows across the floor, in withheld meals and hand holding behind dust covered furniture, the only color those points of sparkling clear light blue.

At the brightest point of the day he sat under a tree and munched another half squashed orange from his bag. Halley paced in front of him, clearly onto a scent.

"Settle down, boy," Jake said, tossing aside a bit of peel. "It's nothing important."

"Nothing important?" came a voice. "How could you say that? This is of utmost importance. We can't be late! The Queen's coronation is almost upon us! There's so much to do!"

Jake turned and saw a very large rabbit who was holding a watch with one hand and biting the nails of the other.

"Um, hello?" Jake said. He was never good at the talking to the locals. Halley was even worse, breaking into a barking fit while the rabbit screamed and ran for it. Jake scrambled to his feet, grabbing his pack. Years of adventuring had taught him to never leave his equipment behind. More precisely, an incident of eating raw fish while trapped in a cave for a week after his only rope had snapped leaving him stranded had taught him.

"Get away!" the rabbit screeched.

"Halley! Come back here!" Jake yelled. "You stupid dog, get back here!"

The rabbit rushed down to a creek, trying to escape into the brush. Halley ran after the rabbit and Jake after him, straight past a clump of tree roots into a dark gaping hole in the ground.

_________________

Falling was an unfortunately familiar sensation for Jake. He had tumbled off ruins on nearly every continent. This time it was different as if did not seem to be stopping anytime soon.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” the rabbit said. “This is terrible.”

“Indeed,” Jake said. “At this rate we’re done for when we hit bottom. It’s been good knowing you, Halley.”

He turned his head but Halley was missing.

“Halley?” he called. “Halley! Halley! Oh, where did that dog get too? And how? Good heavens _how?_ ”

Jake looked around frantically. He noticed that he was slowing down as he fell and in the dim light of the tunnel was beginning to make out shapes around him.

“Well this is certainly curious,” he said.

“I’m so late,” the rabbit whined.

“Late for what?” Jake asked, turning to him but like Halley the rabbit had vanished. Jake folded his arms. “How rude.”

As he fell he passed a variety of furniture, elegant pieces that he hadn’t seen the likes of in years. It was hard to find a velvet settee in the jungle. Just for a lark he grabbed one of the armchairs falling alongside him and sat upon it, leaning back and trying to remember how gentlemen posed. It didn’t last long, for with a thump the chair banged against a wall, tumbling him from it and flat onto a tiled floor.

“Oof!” he exclaimed, wind knocked from him. He curled up in a protective ball, but none of the furniture seemed to be tumbling after him. In fact, when he looked up, the tunnel above was perfectly clear.

Jake rose to his feet and dusted himself off. His pack seemed mostly intact, which was a blessing, but he wasn’t sure he had any hope of scaling the walls of that tunnel. It was awfully long and did curious things to physics. Not to mention he had a dog to find.

“Well old boy,” he said to himself. “We best get going.”

“Who are you calling old?” came a disgruntled voice from the floor.

_________________

“Hello?” Jake called.

“Down here,” the voice said. Upon investigation, it seemed to be coming from a doorknob on a very small wooden door.

“Oh, hello,” Jake said, sitting cross legged on the floor. “A local, how perfect. Perhaps you have seen a dog come past?”

“A dog?” the doorknob said. “Can’t say I have.”

“I have!” came a second voice. This one was a big lower in pitch. Jake turned and on the other wall was yet another door, far too small for a young man like himself.

“His name is Halley,” Jake said. “His fur is white, though sometimes you can hardly tell from all the dirt. You say you’ve seen him.”

“Oh yes,” said the second door. “He came through here.”

“Through?” Jake asked. That didn’t seem likely, Halley couldn’t fit through such an opening any more than Jake could. He leaned down and peaked through the keyhole and saw only whiteness and smelled only salt.

“Where are you from anyway?” the first door asked. “We don’t get many visitors around here. Are you coming to the Queen’s coronation?”

“Yes, the rabbit mentioned a coronation,” Jake said. “But really, I should be-”

“Don’t be hogging all the men,” came a third voice from yet another door. This one was pink and had a distinct falsetto voice. “Hey there, honey.”

“Er, hello,” Jake said, blushing. He hated his tendency to overreact to every flirtatious overture, even, apparently, from doors.

“Hey, come this way,” the pink door said. “I’m the fun one.”

“No, through here,” said the first door. “Everyone who is anyone will be at the Queen’s palace. I’m sure even your dog.”

“I’m not sure my dog is the royal type,” Jake said.

“He went this way,” the second door cut in. “Right along with seashore. I’ve already told you all that.”

“Oh bugger off,” said the third. “I told you, have some fun. You’re too cute to worry about Queens and dogs and whatever.”

“Well, fun or not,” Jake said. “I’m pretty sure I couldn’t fit through any of you.”

“That’s no problem,” the second door said. “Check the table.”

Jake turned and rose, walking over to the table set in the center of the room. On it sat a bottle labelled “Drink Me”.

“How curious,” he said. “How does it work?”

“Why don’t you try it and find out?” said the third door.

Jake shrugged.

"Well here's to adventure!" he said and took a swig of the liquid. "Huh, sweet."

Things got very odd at that point. The room stretched around him, distorting until suddenly, with a pop, he found himself a few feet off the ground and quite tiny.

"Oh, bollocks," he said, then tumbled and landed with a loud smack.

"That looked like it hurt!" the third door said, chipper as ever.

"Thank you for that observation," Jake said bitterly.

"You're welcome!"

Jake struggled to his feet. He was grateful to discover that his clothes and belonging had shrunk with him.

"What a miraculous liquid!" he said. "Now let's get going."

“But going where?” asked the first door.

“That’s a very good question, where am I going?”

_________________

[To the sea.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/493965/chapters/1184782)

[To the palace.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/493965/chapters/1184796)

[To have some fun.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/493965/chapters/1184812)


	3. To the palace...

Whatcha gonna do with all that junk  
All that junk inside your trunk  
I'ma get get get get you drunk  
Get you love drunk off my hump

-Lewis Carroll 

**Chapter 2**

Jake stepped through the door and into a large and lavish garden. The grass was blue, the sky was green, except no, that wasn’t quite right at all.

The whole thing seemed to have a funny look about it. The scenery was big but the air seemed very small. When he turned to the door he had come through, though, it was sitting in mid-air. He did a little walk about it, just to make sure. The speaking doorknob was off on the other side, the in-side or the out-side whichever it was that Jake wasn’t on. He wondered at it for just a moment, before remembering what he was doing.

“Well,” Jake said, “no use wasting time. Where has that dog off and gone to?”

The blue trees in the garden were finely trimmed and spotted with tiny, dripping pink roses. He touched one with his finger and the colour came too. “A blue garden with a green sky and the roses painted pink,” said Jake, and he called on the top of his voice “Halley!” But his voice did not seem to get very far.

The garden itself seemed a winding maze of shrubs too tall to quite peek over. Jake, a tall boy himself, could see the top of the hedges on his very tip toes but he couldn’t see where he was neither where he was going, and there wasn’t a sound of an excited dog anywhere. “Oh dear,” he said, at a fork in the road. “Left is right and right is wrong,” he said, and turned left.

Jake walked and turned and peered over hedges until he was so disoriented and confused he wasn’t sure which way he had come in at all, or which direction was in or out. As a man who loved adventure this was all becoming very frustrating, until he turned a corner and found himself in a small field surrounded by those blasted hedges.

In the center of the field there was a tall table with something placed upon it in a glass dome. Tending to the glass was a girl in a pale blue dress and short cropped hair that whisked under her ears and curled at the crook of her chin. A bright red tiara adorned her head.

_________________

“Excuse me, miss!” Jake called and jogged over to the girl. “Pardon me, but have you seen a large white dog go through here?”

Her response was to stare at him as if he had the stench of someone who had been bathing in week-old fish guts, but aside from her expression she was very pretty. _Extremely_ pretty. Jake cleared his throat and removed his glasses to clean them proper on his shirt. When they returned to his face it was not an illusion at all - she still was possibly the prettiest thing he’d ever seen. “Goodness, you are quite beautiful, aren’t you?”

“Excuse me?” she asked, her voice raised and angry. Oh dear. “You _will_ address me properly.”

“Oh, of course. Umm.” In which ways, Jake wondered, do you address a lady of this calibre? “My dear.”

“Wrong,” she said, and crossed her arms.

“My Lady?” said Jake.

“No.” She frowned. Her angry blue eyes were the loveliest thing.

“ _Princess_ ,” Jake implored, suddenly remembering her tiara as he took her hands in his. Golly, she looked angry about that. “Won’t you tell me your name?”

“My _name_ ,” she growled, her pretty blue eyes so wonderfully furious, and tore her hands away. “Is _the Queen_ , and you’d best remember that, peon!” She stepped back and pointed at him, the nail of her fingers painted red. “Bow before me, and apologize this instant!”

“Uh - of course,” said Jake. He truly didn’t want to sully his pants in the dirt and grass but he knelt obediently and took her hand, and kissed her soft on the fingers. “I’m sorry, your majesty.”

“Better,” said the Queen. She smiled softly and Jake’s heart went pitter pat. “What is your name, gentle sir?”

“My name is Jake,” he said, “Jake Harley.”

“Charming,” said the Queen. “Now, propose to me.”

Jake looked up at her. “Pardon?”

“Ask to be my king, and I will accept,” she said, her free hand on her chest. “And we will rule this kingdom together.”

_________________

[No.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/493965/chapters/1184938l)

[Hell no.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/493965/chapters/1184919)


	4. To have some fun...

The editor, director plus I'm my own boss  
So posh, nails fierce with the gold gloss  
Which means nobody getting over me  
I got the swag and it's pumping out my ovaries

-Lewis Carroll 

**Chapter 2**

"I think I'll go with you," Jake said, pointing to the pink door. “I could use some fun.”

“It’s going to be so much fun," the door said happily. "I haven't been opened in what seems like ages."

The door twittered with excitement as Jake approached, nearly shaking itself off its hinges.

"Oh yes, yes, please open me," the door begged.

"This is getting a bit queer," Jake said.

"Please! Open!" the door screamed. "Don't back out now!"

“I won’t!" Jake answered. He pulled the door open and it screamed in ecstasy.

"Whoa," said the other doors. Jake quickly let go of the knob, blushing bright red.

"I'll just be going," Jake said nervously.

"No," the pink door said, panting. "Please, just a couple more opens and closes?"

"I'm... in a hurry," Jake said. He darted through the door, turning and waving behind him. "Good bye!"

"Typical man," he heard the door mutter as he left.

Jake fell into a jog as the landscape stretched and distorted around him until he came upon a woods that was quite the right size for him.

“The drink must have worn off,” Jake said. “Or else this is the daintiest wilderness I’ve ever been in.”

“And you’ve been in many wildernesses?” came a voice from a tree. On a branch laid a very fat cat, grinning and picking its teeth.

“Oh yes,” he said. “I’m quite the adventurer.”

“Is that so,” the cat said, obviously dubious. “Hmmmm.”

“I was told there was a bit of fun in this vicinity,” Jake said.

The cat laughed.

“You’ll be wanting Roxy then,” the cat said. He pointed down a path. “She’ll be that way.”

“Roxy, such a curious name,” Jake said. “Oddly familiar though. Well, I best be going in any case.”

“Glad to be of assistance,” the cat said. From the tip of his tail he began to fade, drifting away like smoke until only his smile and laugh hung behind.

Jake strode along the path the cat had directed him too. He whistled a song as he went. He didn’t know why, but he felt quite good and not at all put out by the strangeness that was occurring around him. It must have been his rugged nature, he supposed. He was so secure in his manly confidence that he tripped right over a rope and into a net snare.

“Oh fucktits,” he said, dangling in the air.

_________________

It wasn’t that long before he was discovered by a band of strange animals who walked and talked and were dressed quite like humans. The alligator poked him with a stick.

“Excuse me, sir,” Jake said. “That’s quite rude.”

“It talks!” the owl exclaimed.

“Of course I can talk!” Jake snapped. “Now let me down from this.”

“I don’t know,” said the shrew, perched on the alligator’s shoulder. “It could be a monster tricking us.”

“That’s right,” said the owl. “Better keep it bundled up and take it to Miss Lalonde.”

Jake struggled and curse as they cut the net down but did not free him, instead dragging him down the rough path. While they went along a hare dug through his belongings.

“A crown?” the hare said, pulling it from the bag and holding it up so the other animals could see.

“You get your hands off that,” Jake snapped. “That is a gift!”

“A gift for Miss Lalonde now,” the hare laughed.

“This is not fun at all,” Jake said.

Eventually they ended up in a clearing where many other animals were gathered around cook fires and coming in and out of tents. Obviously this was some sort of traveling band of ruffians. Jake shouldn’t have let his guard down. Once he was free you better be sure he was going to whip these whippersnappers into shape.

“Miss Lalonde!” the owl called. “Come quick, we’ve caught a monster!”

Jake managed to maneuver himself so he could see what was going on as a beautiful young blonde woman emerged from one of the tents and stood in the middle of the clearing, fists resting on her hips.

“Well, let’s see this monster,” the woman said.

The alligator tossed the netting containing Jake to the ground. Jake kicked his way free with great difficulty.

“That’s not a monster,” the woman said.

“Are you sure?” the owl said. “I’m quite the expert on monsters.”

“It’s just a boy,” the woman said. “Here, let me help you up.”

“Oh, thank you,” Jake said, taking her offered hand. Her grip was quite firm.

“I’m Roxy,” she said. “Are you lost here like me?”

“I suppose so,” Jake admitted. “Though honestly I’m not quite sure where ‘here’ actually is.”

“You’re in Wonderland!” the hare said.

“He’s a bit dim, I think,” said the shrew.

“At least I’m not a thief!” Jake said, pointing at the crown sitting on the hare’s head.

“Give it here,” Roxy said, snapping her fingers. The hare reluctantly handed it over. “It’s nice.”

“It’s a gift,” Jake said.

“Who are you anyway?” Roxy asked.

“Jake Harley,” he said, bowing. “Adventurer across six continents. Pleased to meet you.”

“Harley?” Roxy asked.

“Yes, that’s my name,” Jake said.

“Huh, I could have sworn... oh nevermind, we have work to do,” Roxy said, shaking her head. “Here’s your gift back.”

“Much obliged,” Jake said. “What sort of work?”

“We’re fighting against a tyrant!” Roxy declared proudly.

“I thought the old queen was gone or something,” Jake said. “I heard about a coronation today.”

“Yes! And the new one is even worse,” Roxy said. “We need to stop her. The only question is which plan to use. The horrible thing about Wonderland is that no one here can ever make up their minds, when they even have them.”

“How terrible,” Jake said. “Not to boast or anything, but I’ve always considered myself quite adept with planning. Can I help?”

“I suppose some advice couldn’t hurt,” Roxy said. “Alright, here’s our options...”

_________________

[Go to the Smith for help with sneaking in.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/493965/chapters/1184986l)

[Who the devil is that? A direct assault is called for!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/493965/chapters/1184990)


	5. The sea...

When sober girls around me, they be actin like they drunk  
They be actin like they drunk, actin-actin like they drunk

-Lewis Carroll

**Chapter 3**

“...the sea.”

“The sea,” said Dirk, as the lizard stormed off. “Is this all some kind of pirate fantasy of yours? Fucked up, dude.”

“No, no, no. It’s the best way to avoid the snark being a boojum.”

“A boojum?”

“Terrible defense mechanisms. You softly and suddenly vanish away,” Jake explained. “Like right into the middle of nothing. Poof! You’re the meat in an existentialism sandwich. I’ve lost good men to it.”

“You’re sixteen.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t know any grown men,” said Jake, and regretted it. “You really have a way of making a fellow’s innocuous comments grow into innuendo before his very eyes, you know that?”

“To be fair,” said a third voice, “you aren’t helping.”

There was a girl in front of them, and it was Jane.

Jake cried out in delight, and tried his best to fall dramatically into her arms. She would have none of it. She put him out at arms’ length and surveyed him critically.

“Well,” she said, with a sigh, “you _look_ familiar, but that’s no guarantee of anything. _You_ look familiar, too,” this to Dirk, “and you haven’t tried to embrace a girl. I’m the Baker, Mr. English--”

“--Harley--”

“--Harley,” she said, dropping a curtsey. “I have wholly forgotten my name. I don’t suppose you know what it is?”

“Of course I do, _Jane Harley_ ,” Jake said. “If this is a prank, sis, it just isn’t up to your usual capabilities. What are you doing here?”

Jane frowned at him. “Onboard?”

Jake looked down. Somehow or other, without him paying close attention, the rocks had made their way into a rather different configuration, and instead of a shore with volcano he was on a boat. It was a vast, grey boat on a great black sea, and in the distance he could see the scattered remains of mountains floating in it like icebergs. Around them in every direction were the stars.

“Anyhoo,” she added, “that doesn’t sound right at all. There’s something particular missing.”

“Something sweet,” Dirk suggested, leaning on the wheel.

“Well, probably,” she allowed. “The question is, what are you doing here?”

_________________

Jake shrugged. “I’m snark hunting now, I s’pose,” he said. “Before I was looking for you.”

“But that’s strange,” Jane said. “I’m sure I was looking for someone too. What about you, young man?”

Dirk lifted a hand. “The snark, like I said. They’re people too.”

“They’re wild beasts!”

“Pretty reductive,” Dirk said. “I’m just saying. How did you get here?”

Jane here launched into a long and excessively circumstantial narrative, which Jake did his best to attend to, but he was continually being distracted by the state of her appearance and the emotional impact of her amnesia, so that the effect of her tale on his memory, it is sad to say, was rather scattered, and what he heard went something like this:

“I woke for the first time an hour ago, though I suppose it couldn’t possibly be for the _actual_ first time, but I hope you’ll forgive me the literary convention, in a garden maze surrounded by tall hedges--”

\--dressed in a long blue gown with symmetrical tears, and it looked rather fine on her--

“--and I said to the salamander, I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean ‘right of conquest!’--”

\--an anxious, careworn expression on her face that he’d never seen before, which must have had something to do with the way she kept lifting her hand to her forehead, as though pushing back a crown--

“--so I, well, I pulled out my spoon and I laid a good one right on the lion’s forehead, and what do you know, he fell straight into the unicorn and they got to wrestling--”

\--but also probably something to do with the fact that he’d left her all alone, which made him more anxious than it ought to, as though he’d done something just yesterday instead of three years’ worth of bad decisions--

“--and the court all burst out into a spirited discussion on the state of tea, which was rather irrelevant, _I_ thought--”

\--and he was extremely sorry for having left her.

“--and that’s how I came here,” Jane explained. She smoothed out her skirt, and looked up expectantly at the both of them.

“I’m sorry,” Jake blurted out, which was when the space whale appeared.

_________________

[Onwards....](http://archiveofourown.org/works/493965/chapters/1184877)


	6. The sky...

Diamonds are forever  
Throw your diamonds in the sky if you feel the vibe

-Lewis Carroll

**Chapter 3**

“...the sky.”

Dirk lifted an eyebrow. “Why the sky?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Jake said. “This is some kind of dream shenanigan, the likes of which I’ve been trapped in before, no thanks to _you_ , Mr. Strider. And if we are in a dream then the way out is up, past the walls of the bubble.”

“It’s all so obvious,” Dirk muttered. “If we’re in a dream, we’re causally dislocated from the rest of our timeline, you realize. We could be in the past. We could be one or two universes over. Hell, we could be misremembering the rules of the universe. That’d be ironic. For a given value of irony.”

Jake shook his head at this faint-heartedness. “Up,” he said, encouragingly, and pointed to the sky. “Come on, bust out your magic flying skateboard.”

“How do you know about my magic flying--” Dirk began, and covered his eyes. “Alright, I admit that isn’t the most implausible thing about this situation. Hang on tight.”

The magic flying skateboard was the single coolest thing Jake had ever seen in his life, and he clung to Dirk’s waist as it accelerated, bracing himself against the burn from the rearmounted rockets. A veneer of pink grew in the formless sky, like the arc of a moon-- or not a moon, in a reference to a piece of cinema he felt he ought to remember-- and then there was a spot of brighter pink against the rest, and then the spot was a girl which they were accelerating towards at Mach 2. Dirk did not even pause to scoop her onboard. Against the bruising wind, Jake could hardly turn his head to assess the girl, but he could hear her snoring. After a moment her head slipped out of Dirk’s arms and fell onto her knee.

He could certainly duck his head to get a better look at her, and did. She was small and her hair curled under her chin and she hadn't even come close to waking up, not when he jostled his knee to wake her, or when he yelled "GET UP". She was probably having a grand time in her dream, which might have been the other side of his. He couldn't make it work in his head. It kept turning inside out to be replaced with an image of two bright worlds, purple and yellow, orbiting a great blue sun. That was obviously no help. First rhymed verse and then tangential metaphor-- what was this, a conspiracy?

In her sleep, the beautiful girl murmured, "Jakey." She made a frustrated noise, turning her cheek into his thigh. "I literally could not be madder at you."

“But I'm _sorry_ ,” Jake answered, to his own surprise, which was when the giant glowing space mummy appeared in the sky.

“What _is_ that?” Dirk said. The skateboard skidded to an impossible, mid-air stop.

Jake squinted. “It’s a snark!” he proposed. “It _must_ be! Here, hold up a thimble and see what happens!”

Dirk rolled his eyes, but he offered a succession of thimbles, forks, and soap to the glimmering figure. All of them caused it to shiver in midair. Jake cheered, and waved his hands, and wagged his head, and jumped up and down, nearly upsetting the board.

The mummy seemed to open, and within were two eyes and a great green set of jaws.

From her position on the board, the girl yawned, and sat up, a smile still half-formed on her lips. Then the ominous words, “Mother of fu--”

_________________

**You have died.**

_________________

One, two! One, two! And through and through  
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!  
He left it dead, and with its head  
He went galumphing back.

-Nicki Minaj


	7. Onwards...

Starships were meant to fly  
Hands up and touch the sky  
Can’t stop ‘cause we’re so high  
Let’s do this one more time

-Lewis Carroll

**Chapter 4**

Jake screamed like a small child and tumbled backwards into Dirk’s manly arms. Dirk, trying to catch him and produce a sword at the same time, succeeded only in getting them tangled against the wheel, and the whale opened its mighty jaws and roared.

“This is not how whales work!” Jane protested, at the top of her lungs.

“Oh, _what_ whales!” Dirk yelled back. “This is exactly how metaphorical whales work! This is also not the time!”

Jake gripped the wheel and spun hard, listing the ship to starboard. The whale’s jaws worked, and he swore--they weren’t turning fast enough--he got hold of the sheet, and yanked, and the sail snapped full against the solar wind. The whale’s teeth closed on empty air. “Something sweet!” he screamed. “Give it something sweet!”

For some reason both Jane and Dirk looked hard at him, and then met each others’ eyes and turned away. “I’ve got soda in my sylladex,” Dirk said instead. “But it’s diet.”

“What the fucking dicks?” Jake demanded. “Are you afraid you won’t stay buff enough to show off your ridiculous tattoo?”

Dirk’s eyebrows lifted. “How do you know about my tattoo?”

“How do you know how to defeat cetspaceans?” Jane asked, curiously.

“How do neither of you have anything sugarbased on you at the climactic moment of this adventure?” Jake wailed. “How is that even possible?”

“You don’t have to _yell_ ,” Jane said, quite affronted, which is when they all realized that none of them had to yell; the whale was gone.

“Hi,” said the girl in its place. Around her they could still see the fading outline of the whale as it disappeared into the void, and then was gone.

_________________

The girl did a pirouette, her feet just brushing the prow of the ship as she righted herself, and the whole edifice melted into the black sky.

“Wow,” she said. “You guys made a _whole mess_ of this dream without me, huh?”

Jake stared up at her. She was even stranger than Dirk, a confection of pink and pincurls, her accent broader than his even after years on his own, but her smile was wry.

Jane tucked her hand into his with sudden confidence. “Little things started going wrong,” she told the girl. “It’s amazing how they pile up.”

“ _Tell_ me about it. It is,” said the girl, impressively, “theeee _classic_ engineering error. You think you can correct for it, but then you end up correcting for the correcting for the rocketing-- correcting--” She hiccuped. “Gosh. Someone is drunker than she bargained for in this fantasy version of herself. That is kind of insulting, Jakey.”

Dirk tilted his head. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but did I clone you?”

The girl let out a shout of laughter. “Not yet,” she said. “All right, kids, playtime is over. Do you _want_ to take it the wrong way?” She winked, open-mouthed, in what Jake was forced to admit was the least attractive come-on he’d ever experienced. “Ew, gross, all of you! I can see what you’re thinking written on your adorable faces. So _puerile._ I mean, do you want to take the wrong way out?”

“I’ll take a way out whichever way it’s pointing,” Jane said, fervently, reaching out to Dirk. “Are you coming, Mr. Something’s Up?”

Dirk took it, looking badly wrong-footed. “I thought I was planning this expedition.”

“You always think you’re planning the expedition,” Roxy said repressively, “and then you get yourself defenestrated. Decapitated. Though I guess I should be bitching to Jake about _that_ one. Jake?”

But Jake was a brave boy, and not one given to critical thinking, and a boy with concrete goals, and one who trusted his friends. He was already reaching for her hand.

“Hang tight,” said Roxy, and they softly and suddenly vanished away.

_________________

Jake opened his eyes.

Dirk was still asleep, his head pillowed in Jake’s elbow, and Jake tried not to disturb him too much as he sat up. He really wasn’t super jazzed about doing anything to jeopardize Dirk’s head these days. Jane was out too, he saw, her head at his feet, and Roxy was sitting up and watching him.

“Hey,” she said, and gave him a little wave.

Oh, Dirk and Jane’s delicate frigging sleeping schedules be damned. Jake climbed straight over them to wrestle her into a hug.

“Oh, wow, hi! Okay!” she said, laughing, and pushed him off, not very hard. “I get it. You’re happy to see me, boy. Did Lassie fall down the scary dream well or something? Yo, how many fingers am I holding up? And by fingers I mean last names.”

“I thought I was my grandmother,” he said, baffled. “Or something like her but not as muscular, and I felt like I would have grown a bitching mustache. I don’t think Grandma ever had a mustache.”

“Well, how can you be sure?” Roxy asked reasonably. She’d come to terms with the fact that he wasn’t planning on letting go of her, and she bent her head against his. “Anyway... listen, with great power comes great responsibility, all right? You can’t Page of Hope up whatever you want. Especially nightmares.”

“Is that what it was?” Jane asked. When he turned to look at her she was up on her elbow, an expression of sleepy incredulity still lingering on her face. “Pages are a notoriously creative class, I suppose. If there was one of them hanging around with a guilt complex over all of us recently dying...”

“And he suddenly fell asleep for some reason, like if he was super tired from trying to kill a fish empress last time he knocked himself out like a chump...” Roxy said, encouragingly. “And then some _nonspecific_ Prince of Heart maybe _encouraged_ him by destroying the way _out..._ ”

Jane smiled at his blush. “It’s not your fault,” she said, practically. “I mean, of course it is literally your fault, and you should be ashamed of yourself, but it certainly could have been worse. We are all currently alive.”

As if to underscore this, Dirk gave a hiccup of a snore, his head lolling sideways, and Roxy stuffed her fist into her mouth to cover her giggles. “He’s cute,” she admitted. “I kind of thought you guys would be way weirder looking than you turned out to be. You’re all pretty hunky.”

“Am I hunky?” Jane said. “I’ve always wanted to be hunky.”

“You are the hunkiest of us all,” Jake promised. He reached out to pull her into the hug. “Okay, well. Thank you for saving us all with your magic void powers. I mean really. That was a sticky situation.”

“Don’t mention it,” Roxy said. She curled her hand around his. “So, I think we should draw a mustache on Dirk’s face.”

Jane pressed a kiss to Roxy’s forehead and stood. “I’ll get the permanent markers.”

_________________

In Wonderland they lie,  
Dreaming as the days go by,  
Dreaming as the summers die.

-Lupe Fiasco

[Epilogue?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/651096/chapters/1185096)


	8. Hell no...

Nah I ain't passed the bar but I know a little bit  
Enough that you won't illegally search my shit  
"Well see how smart you are when the K-9's come"  
I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one  
Hit me

-Lewis Carroll 

**Chapter 3**

"Goodness gracious, are you out of your gorgeous flippin' mind?" asked Jake, then immediately regretted it. A woman who demanded to be addressed as "the Queen" would surely take issue with having her sanity questioned.

Indeed he was right, as a thundercloud of an expression settled dark and imposing over the Queen's face. " _Guard!_ " she shrilled, pointing to Jake with one red nailpolished finger. "Take him away to learn some _manners_!"

"Now wait, your Majesty, I'm really quite sorry, I meant no disrespect!" Jake babbled out desperately. "It's just that we barely know each other and a few moments interaction isn't the stuff that a good, long-term relationship is built on! I'm sure if we got to know each other better I'd be more inclined toward marriage, but--"

It was good that he was knocked unconscious right then, he really wasn't sure how he intended to end that sentence anyway.

_________________

Jake woke to gloom, a strange weight on his wrists, and an inability to move much beyond a half-hearted squirm. He was sitting up and the thing keeping him sat up was hard and uncomfortable. Somewhere in the distance, water dripped irregularly.

The back of his head throbbed to remind him how he'd gotten in this particular predicament, and with it came the memory of the lead-up. "By gumption but I made an ass of myself. Well done, Jake. A pretty girl shows interest in marriage and you insult her."

"Not your finest moment, I'm sure," a low voice spoke up from the darkness. "But then I'm not familiar with your social habits, so that could be your typical _modus operandi_."

Being surprised by anything this place had to throw at him seemed old hat, so he didn't bother. Instead he squinted into the darkness to find the speaker. He could see a faint red glow and below it a gentleman in dark, triangular sunglasses, barely lit by its sinister light. His mouth was a grim line on his face.

"Pardon me, who might you be?" Jake asked, unable to shake the feeling that he knew the young man.

"A loyal servant to our glorious Queen," growled the man, the words crashing orange-tinted against Jake's ears. "Here to carry out her every order, her smallest whim, her most nonsensical desire. And what she desires right now is that the cur who callously spurned her gracious invitation be taught how one treats royalty."

_________________

Jake's lesson in proper etiquette when dealing with royalty took an amount of time he was far too busy to take note of but could probably be estimated as "too much bloody time". When his self-appointed instructor took a breather to wash his hands, Jake fought to blink away the sweat and flashing lights invading his vision. For reasons he couldn't even begin to deduce, something inside of him was screaming that this wasn't how it was supposed to go _at all_.

When the Queen's servant set aside a hand towel and started toward him again, Jake gasped out, "Jesus polka-dancing Christ, I've learned my lesson! Never argue with a woman in a glowing tiara, yes, I get it! Good god, man, I don't need any further instruction on the matter!"

The man stopped, unnaturally still, and it seemed that the glow of the red tiara he also wore -- what _was_ up with these royal fashions? -- pulsed brighter for a moment. Then he tilted his head and murmured, "So you're saying you want some time to think about what you've done?"

"Yes! I would be chuffed as fuck for time to think about how bally well sorry I am to have insulted Her Highness!"

The tiara pulsed again and the man inclined his head. "The Queen is feeling generous today. Such depths of generosity are unprecedented in these parts." The man suddenly loomed over him, leaning down so they were almost nose-to-nose. A stupid little piece of Jake that lacked in survival instincts urged him to close the distance and kiss the boy. He managed to refrain, even if the Queen's servant _was_ quite handsome when not pummeling him. "I tell you this," the man continued, "so you can better appreciate just how lucky you are.

"And remember: you asked for this."

_________________

[Onwards....](http://archiveofourown.org/works/493965/chapters/1184942)


	9. No...

You can't be mad at me  
Cause if you liked it  
Then you should have put a ring on it

-Lewis Carroll 

**Chapter 3**

“Erm,” said Jake, looking up at the Queen from where he knelt at her feet. “Well, you see...”

“Yes?” she asked, appearing to grow annoyed at his wasting time.

“Well you’re quite beautiful, you know,” Jake stammered. “And I would very much like to get to know you, but marriage seems a bit, well... permanent... for someone I only met moments ago. Not that I’m sure I won’t want to marry you when I get to know you better! I bet you’re as nice as you are beautiful, but... oh dear.”

The Queen simply pointed her finger at Jake - fingernails red - and said: “To the dungeon with you! Until you learn proper manners with which to address the Queen!”

“Wait - I’m very sorry!” Jake called out, as the Queen folded her arms and turned away from him. “I’m just looking for my dog!”

Before he could even stand up to his feet there was a tug around his waist, and with a wet _schloop_ the garden disappeared. Suddenly it was very very dark, and Jake fell face-forward into hard wet dirt.

_________________

“Fucking horseshit is what this is,” Jake groaned, climbing to his feet and poking his lip with his tongue. He’d punched a hole in it with his tooth, and he could feel it swelling up. It tasted like metal. “I don’t think anything’s been so impossible in my life as finding a stubborn dog in this place. The downs are up and the ins stay in and the roses are painted pink and the pretty girls like me far too much. That’s never been a problem before! How do I get out?”

The dungeon looked an awful lot like a dungeon, and not one bit weird or nonsensical like the rest. There were bars and locks and a cold floor and an uncomfortable looking bed, a bucket, and a girl watching him. Hopefully this one was a bit less strange than the last.

“Finally saw me did you?” she said. “You’ve been rattling on over there like you’ve got a friend in your ear! I had one of those once, took a cue-tip the size of your eye to get rid of ‘em.” She paused for a peal of squeaky laughter, and stepped up to Jake, peering in his face and picking at his clothes.

“Well, I certainly don’t have one of those!” said Jake, batting her hands away as politely as he could. “Unless I do... But I don’t think. Who are you?”

“You can call me Roxy!” she said, letting the s sound hang hissing in her mouth while she looked at him, smiling. Jake thought she must be a mischievous one, a trickster, maybe. She had a bright blouse and a puffy pink skirt, but everything was gray and dirty, and her hair was messy. He had to hold her wrists to keep her fingers from pinching and prodding at him. She giggled and swayed, dancing on her feet.

“How long have you been down here?” Jake asked.

“A few hours, I think?” said Roxy. “Or maybe it’s been days. Or weeks. Or months? Or years! Why, maybe I’ve been down here forever! It’s hard to say, but it’s awful nice to have company, mister...?”

“Jake! Jake Harley,” he said, and let go of Roxy’s wrists to shake her hand properly. “Adventurer across six continents!”

“Harley?” She said, and paused for a moment before she gave a smile and went on. “What did you do to get put down here, Jakey?” asked Roxy. “I was thrown in the brig for not speakin' proper to miss almighty majesty up there.” Roxy stuck her bottom lip out in a pout. “We used to be best friends, you know.”

“Truly?” asked Jake. “That seems like a nasty thing to do to your very best friend.”

“I thought so too,” Roxy nodded. She listened so close to Jake, staring right into his eyes so much as to make him blush from his ears to his elbows.

_________________

“She dropped me down here for not asking her to marry me,” Jake said, and Roxy squealed with laughter. She threw her head back and giggled with her mouth wide open. “What’s so funny?”

“You must be pretty special, Jae- Jake,” she said, hiccupping on his name. “She doesn’t like just anyboby! But now that you’ve arrived, maybe we can get out of this place! I’ve been locked up here by mister tightass dickprince who won’t even bring me a bottle of shine if you catch my drift.” The final f sound sloshed out of her lips.

“Not quite,” said Jake.

“His name’s Dirk,” said Roxy, and she took Jake by the shoulders and turned him around, a smile in her eyes. “He’s the Queen’s errand-boy really. Used to be a friend of mine, too, ‘til she made him funny like her. Now I can’t get through on either of em. She got his head pulled right inside-out and turned it blue I think.” Roxy leaned to peer through the bars into the dark outside of their cell, but Jake could see nothing but darkness and black. “Won’t you do me an easy and see if you can’t get ‘im to lessus out?”

“Let us?” Jake said, peering through the cell bars into nothing at all.

“What about lettuce?” said Roxy, the warmth of her easing off of his back.

“I don’t see your friend here, Roxy,” Jake said, squinting his eyes, but there was hardly any light at all, hanging just outside their prison cell and hardly getting any further. “I don’t see why he’d let me go and not you but I guess anything is worth a try.”

“Just say something mean about her royal highness and he’ll show right up! Poop! Out of nowhere.” Roxy laughed so hard for a moment Jake was worried she might break right open. “I meant _poof_!” she said.

Jake stuck his chin in between the bars of his cell and gave the door a little shake - just to see. “It’s not good manners to say rude things about people!”

“Oh, boo. Who gives a shit about propers,” Roxy said. “I’ve said all kinds of things! Doesn’t mean I really mean it. Just do it!”

“Well,” started Jake. “She did seem awfully demanding!”

“She’s royalty she’s just like that,” said Roxy.

“She wanted me to propose without knowing me at all!” Jake said, and stuck out his lip to blow hair from his face. “Not too picky, is she?”

“Come on, Jake, you’re not good at this,” said Roxy, emerging from the dark with her pink eyes and silver grin to move in close to his ear with a whisper. “Repeat after me...”

And Jake echoed. “The Queen couldn’t bake a cake to save her life?”

_________________

[Onwards...](http://archiveofourown.org/works/493965/chapters/1184960)


	10. You asked for this...

Wake up in the mornin' feelin' like P- Diddy (Hey what's up girl)  
Grab ma glasses I'm out the door I'm gonna hit the city (Let's go)  
Before I leave brush ma teeth with a bottle of Jack  
'Cuz when I leave for the night I ain't comin back

-Lewis Carroll

**Chapter 4**

"Well, I bally well asked for this," Jake muttered to himself, staring up at a mildew-covered ceiling. The Queen's servant had ushered him back into unconsciousness with a blur of movement and he was just waking up. His head wasn't particularly thrilled with recent events and frankly Jake was right there with it on thrill-level.

"Ooh, did Queeny's lapdog getcha with that 'you asked for it' bullshhhit?"

Just as he had considered and rejected sitting up and looking around, a smiling face popped into view above him. "You're a _cute_ one," she said with an exaggerated wink. "Lucky dick--duck--Lol, dickduck. Lucky _Dirk_ didn't rough up your face any, that's your meal ticket!"

"...Hello? And who might you be?"

"Well I _might_ be a Cheshire cat, but not here, not that," she sing-songed, humming as she turned this way and that without turning away from him. "I'm Roxy, Mr. Rude-Who-Doesn't-Even-Properly-Introduce-Himself!"

"Terribly sorry, my dear, I'm afraid I'm all out of sorts lately." Jake lifted a hand, where it was enthusiastically grabbed and shaken. "Jake Harley, prisoner at the Queen's leisure, and at your service."

Roxy wheezed out a giggle. "Ooooh, what'd ya do? Whatcha in for? What bug crawled up Janey's ass over _your_ choice rump?"

"I didn't propose to her," said Jake with some embarrassment. "And called her crazy."

His cellmate howled with laughter, thin, dirty arms wrapped around her middle, her bedraggled blond hair whipping about her face. Jake smiled. At least if he had to be trapped here, he had some friendly company.

"Roxy Lalonde."

Roxy's laughter trailed off as she turned her darkly-bagged eyes toward the bars of their cell. Standing there at attention was the Queen's servant, Dirk. He held a sword in one hand, the only thing in the dungeon that managed to gleam in the barely existent light. His expression failed to betray his purpose there, but Roxy's said enough for two faces so it rather balanced out.

"Already?" she asked, voice wavering on a thin tightrope of false cheer. "I haven't even finished gettin' to know your new boy toy, Dirky."

"You have until the door's unlocked to finish," he replied, holding up a key.

Roxy spun back to face Jake and grabbed his wrists, terror and desperation dancing in her eyes. "Jakey Jakey Jakey, don't forget me, okay? You gotsa--You gotta remember. And Jane, and Dirk. They weren't always like this. They ain't _s'posed_ to be like this! _Remember_."

Jake tried to return her grasp, but the cell door was clanking open and the Queen's servant was dragging Roxy away. Wits and strength finally returned, Jake shoved himself to his feet and lunged after but only succeeded in banging his nose against the closed bars. "Roxy! Dirk, old boy, don't be a complete dickprince!"

"I do as my Queen commands."

_________________

Roxy's last words to him, as she was dragged away by a man with a sharp sword and a grim expression, were to remember. Tears choking her voice, she had begged him to.

He would, oh how he would...if only he knew _what_ to remember. If he could only remember that, he'd be set.

Sometimes, with nothing for company but darkness and the smell of dank mold, he would dream. He would dream about those cold blue eyes crinkling in mirth, the henchman's stony mouth quirked at one side, and his dear former cellmate with eyes clear and clever. He could picture them all so clearly it sometimes felt as if the dreams were real and reality was just a very bad dream. Then he would wake once again in the cold, dirty dungeon and see the marks Roxy had left on the wall, scribblings he couldn't decipher and gouged-in drawings of cats, and his dreams would float away where he couldn't reach them.

He was haunted by the feeling that they could all have been great friends, perhaps even the very _closest_ of chums, but it appeared that in this here and now there was no having for it. It was just him, the cell, and his own loneliness down there.

_________________

To beg a tale of breath too weak  
To stir the tiniest feather!   
Yet what can one poor voice avail  
Against three tongues together? 

-Ke$ha


	11. To save her life...

My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard  
And there like, it’s better than yours  
Damn right its better than yours  
I can teach you, but I’d have to charge

-Lewis Carrol

**Chapter 4**

Jake watched the dark for a long time, but nothing changed. The dark stayed dark with one cloudy bit of light from a bulb in the corner.

“Are you sure that was right?” he asked Roxy.

“I’m sure that would have worked!” she said. “Hold on, I’ll come up with another one.”

But then, suddenly, a boy appeared out of nowhere, and startled Jake so thoroughly he jumped back from the cell bars with a cry. Roxy laughed at him, and wounded his pride sorely.

“It would be polite, you know, to warn somebody before you just scare the bejeesus out of them like that!” said Jake.

The boy gave a shrug. He was just a little bit shorter than Jake and in a fine orange suit with a small red crown on his head, the same sort he had seen on the Queen. He also wore his hair spiky and had sunglasses on even in the pitch dark, which seemed rather silly to Jake. In his right hand he held a vial full of green liquid, and a small wooden cup in his left. “Jake English,” he said.

“It’s Harley,” said Jake.

“Jake English,” he said again, measuring the green liquid into the cup. This must be the man named Dirk. “You have been hereby ordered by the queen to consume an ounce of love potion per hour until you come to your senses and are properly inclined to propose to her majesty.”

“Whaaat!” drawled Roxy from behind Jake, as he backed away from the door to the cell.

“Don’t you think that the proper inclination is the one most suited to my own feelings and disposition?” said Jake.

“Oftentimes that is the case,” said Dirk, peering into the vial he held. “Unless they go against the Queen’s wishes. At that point your behavior is illegal and must be rectified.”

_________________

Jake blinked and Dirk seemed to disappear for a moment, and in the next he was standing inside the cell with Jake and Roxy. As he backed off Jake hit his knee against the cot and fell on top of it.

“I don’t know why you don’t just marry her yourself, Dirk!” Roxy yelled - screamed, really - and stomped her foot. “She’s got you wrapped around her finger, you don’t have a thought of your own anymore!”

Dirk gave a little shrug and handed the cup out to Jake, holding it in the air for him to take. “We could do this the easy way, or the hard way,” he said, and Jake flushed, suddenly aware of how close the other boy was, standing between his knees.

“Jake can love who he wants without getting drugged up!” said Roxy, who approached Dirk from behind to yank at his arm holding the potion cup. Dirk quickly switched hands with it - the vial gone, somewhere - and continued holding it out for Jake.

“Well it seems to me that a love potion is harmless enough,” said Jake. “But how am I supposed to know that it’s not poison? I’m not really sure what poison looks like but wouldn’t that be bad for a Queen to give a prisoner?”

“The Queen can kill who she wants,” said Dirk, switching the cup in his hand as Roxy moved to tug at his other arm instead. “And she can love who she wants.”

“And who she wants can love her?” asked Jake.

Dirk nodded, steely and expressionless as Roxy tried to climb his shoulders.

Jake took the cup out of Dirk’s hand, his fingers brushing the other boy’s. Oh dear. “Do you love her then?”

Dirk said nothing, but stared back at Jake with those funny looking dark spectacles. Maybe he wasn’t looking at Jake at all, it was hard to say, but he stepped back politely when Jake stood. “Please drink the potion. In my experience people don’t like being forced,” he said.

“You seem to be a very sad man, Dirk,” Jake said, maybe feeling a little tiny wee bit jealous that he was so close to the Queen. He wanted to get to know them both better. “You should tell her how you feel! Or ask her how she feels. Maybe she likes you, too! And I think that you have the way better makings of a king than me.”

“Look at how cute he is,” Roxy murmured into Dirk’s ear, loud enough for Jake to hear everything, all the while staring right at Jake. “All rugged and adorable.”

“Are you talking about me?” Jake asked, pointing to himself with the cup, which he had forgotten he was holding entirely.

“If he drinks that potion and falls for the Queen you’ll never stand a chance,” Roxy said, and raised her hands to slowly remove the crown from Dirk’s head. “It’ll just be the two of them married and gross and off limits and all you’ll have is lil ol’ me and I know you hate that.”

With the crown gone a golden glow filled the room from Dirk’s feet and brightened everything with a yellow light from nowhere in particular. Roxy seemed to become clean, the dirt disappearing from her hair and her face, her pink skirt bright.

“Roxy,” Dirk said, his voice low as he turned to face Roxy, who dropped from his shoulders and hid the crown behind her back with a wink at Jake. “You know that’s not true.”

“You haven’t treated me in a way that tells me otherwise,” she said with a pout. “Lockin me up in this stinky dungeon just ‘cause she tells you to! And that she told you to do that to me, her best friend! There’s something wrong with her, Dirk! And you, too!”

“I’m sorry,” said Dirk, and bent to give Roxy a hug. She hugged him back, and with a flick of her wrist, tossed the crown into the bucket with a light splash. “You’re right, this is totally fucked up. I don’t know what happened.”

“I remember,” said Roxy.

_________________

“Janesy came to Wonderland when her dad died,” Roxy said. “The old queen felt sorry for her, so she took Janey under her hair, so to speak,” she giggled. “She got to be the princess of Wonderland! That was before you two showed up. She and I were besties back then. I took care of a lot of the little stuff, the carapaces and paperwork and maze planning and stuffs like that. We talked all the time - every day! For a while, at least.

“The old Queen was always a bit of a bitch, but she wasn’t too bad. Jansey took up a bunch of her shit though like the attitude and the everybody-gotta-serve-me holier-than-thou stuff. It wasn’t too bad before she got that crown from the old Queen though. He gave her one of those like hers and then the best were off. She went careening into crazy tyrant-ville faster than a hedgehog on a rollercoaster.

“Dirk was the captain of the guard and they were friends too but you knew, I’m sure you knew it. You noticed all that weird stuff that was going on,” Roxy said, pointing at Dirk. “But you guys were really really close and she got that collar on you before you could say anything to ‘er. You knew better! And then suddenly you didn’t! And then I said something and you tossed me down here like a sister-in-law or somethin. The other Queen disappeared and she gets to be Queen and you get to be the new brainwashed princess tyrant and let your friends rot in jail.”

“I’m so sorry, Roxy,” Dirk said again.

“You’d better be,” she said at first, and then, “thank you. It’s fine now.” And, enthusiastically, “we can make it better, right?”

“I guess I’ll have to,” Dirk said, and turned to Jake. “English.”

“It’s Harley,” Jake said.

“English,” he said. “I know you’ve got nothing to do with her. I can just let you out.”

“How can I leave knowing there’s ladies in distress?” Jake said, with a grin. “And a gentleman too, of course.”

“Aww,” Roxy said, and elbowed Dirk. “He’s so charming.” Dirk ignored her and turned his face away from Jake. He approached the door and opened it, and Jake wondered if there was the slightest blush on his cheek.

“The official coronation hasn’t happened yet,” said Dirk. “We might still be able to bring her around.”

“Let’s do it!” said Roxy, leading the way down the once dark tunnels led by Dirk’s golden glow.

_________________

They ran through the tunnels deep underground, and Jake found himself worrying about how long Roxy had been down there, and definitely not even a little bit admiring anyone’s behind, because that would be ungentlemanly. They reached an opening at the end, leading to a tiny dock and a little boat, Roxy already perched inside with a smile. Dirk gestured Jake to get in first, even offering his hand for him for balance as he sat, and kicked off from the dock with a stick in hand to pull them along.

“I don’t remember coming all the way down here!” Said Jake, surveying the time via the sun, a hand protecting his eyes. “It all just happened in the blink of an eye!”

“In emergencies, I can move that fast,” said Dirk. “But not with two people, and not with Roxy.”

Roxy giggled at that and Jake peered at her. Whatever allusions they made would remain a mystery.

Dirk steered them around a jagged cliff edge over the water that sparkled with flowers that hummed, and Jake was certain they had faces. On the other side there was another dock, and Jake recognized the green grass and rose bushes all over. The sun was leaning in the sky and turning everything orange as Dirk tossed a rope over one of the peg sticky-outy-things and Roxy leaped out of the boat onto the dock behind him, Jake following after.

“Do we have a plan?” asked Dirk.

“You do, you’re always the one with the plan,” said Roxy.

“Good enough,” said Dirk, and they ran together toward the royal gardens.

_________________

As they approached the coronation, Jake noticed that the gardens were teeming with chess pieces, all standing on legs and holding spears, the knights with horse heads and the pawns with little beady eyes. They turned when the three intruders approached, spears raised, but Roxy gave them a little wave and they stood back, forming neat little rows and standing straight. Dirk walked with his shoulders square and with a purpose, and behind Jake, Roxy skipped a little bit, without a care in the world.

The Queen - Jane, Jake remembered - sat on a large throne, a stuffed rabbit on her lap and a table laid out before her with bountiful food, but no one but the three of them and a myriad of chess pieces. Jake wondered if they were expecting guests, but Dirk’s low voice boomed before he could get a word in.

“Jane something has happened to you,” he said, pointing at her and everything. “And it happened to me, too. You’re not in control of yourself since you got that crown.” Roxy, at his side, nodded enthusiastically. “It’s time to take it off.”

Jane did not look impressed. “Are you saying I should abdicate the throne, Dirk?”

“Yes, I am,” he said.

“You’re not really a queen!” shouted Roxy. “Not of this place! There’s another world - another life still waiting for you outside of this place! You belong there!”

Jane stared at Roxy and said, “Who are you?” Roxy’s shoulders slumped a bit, and she pouted.

“Hey!” Jake shouted. “That girl was your best friend! How could you forget her like that?”

Jane’s head slowly turned to regard Jake, sadness on her face. “Oh Dirk,” she said. “How could you fail me so miserably?”

Dirk looked like he wanted to speak, but instead stood still with his mouth open, arms hanging heavy with failure.

“I think you should all sit down and we can have a nice dinner and talk this over. We can resolve our differences and get things back to normal,” said Jane, pointing toward the chairs at the table. “There are just enough here for three, and a king,” she said, and looked to Jake.

Jake glanced and Dirk and Roxy who were staring at their places at the table. They wanted to go and give in, let her lies continue. They had been so broken by her already they were just ready to roll over and take it. Jake couldn’t stand for that. But what could he do?

And then he heard a bark, and he called “Halley!” Jake put his fingers to his lips and blew a whistle, and the giant white dog hurdled through the bushes in the hedge maze and scattered chess piece people all over the place. When Jake looked up next, panting dog at his side, all eyes were on him.

Jake crouched next to his dog, burying his hands in Halley’s white fur and leaning in close to his ear. “You see that girl?” Jake asked, pointing to Jane. “She needs some big sloppy kisses.”

Halley barked, excited, and tore out of Jake’s arms toward Jane. The dog bounded up the steps to the throne and ducked behind the table. Jane scrambled backward with a cry before Halley succeeded in knocking her over, and proceeded in smothering her with liberal affection.

Dirk and Roxy looked on, speechless, as Jake crossed the courtyard to where a giggling Queen was being licked in the face, and took the tiara from her head. Her cries of protest were joyful and misleading. Jake flicked his wrist and tossed the tiara to Dirk. The former prince didn’t even move and the tiara split into two.

_________________

With the tiara broken, the world itself seemed to burst open from that spot like Dirk had sliced through reality along with the thing. Everything warped and pushed out and they all stood like helpless onlookers until Jake finally opened his eyes.

 _Really_ opened his eyes.

Jake caught a breath suddenly and sucked it in as though he had been holding it, and coughed a little as it hooked on something mysterious in his throat. He had to remove his right hand from Dirk’s in order to cough into the long-sleeved shirt at his elbow. At his left his hand was in Roxy’s as she slept peacefully.

They were laid out in a row on a string of cots in a cozy little cave on Jane’s planet. Crypts and Helium, she called it, with gray doom and gloom as far as the eye can see, all specked with little pinpricks of balloon colour. Jake could see them at the mouth of the cave. Things seemed pretty quiet.

Jake squeezed Roxy’s hand and let her go, and sat up. He could see that on the other side of Roxy lay Jane, the girls also hand-in hand.

“You were having a strange dream by the looks of it,” said Dirk, his hands folded on his chest.

“Weren’t you?”

Dirk paused. “I might have been.”

Jake ran a hand down his face and scratched at the nape of his neck. “These dreambubbles are a heck of a lot of roundabout bullshit and mindgames, it seems to me,” he said. “When you’re not running around embarrassing me in front of strangers, you don’t know who I am and you’re embarrassing me in front of friends.”

“Please,” said Dirk. “You only ever embarrass yourself.”

“I had you a couple of times in there,” Jake said, with a smirk.

“That may or may not be true,” said Dirk, who tugged at his sleeve. “Lay down, we might as well wait until the girls get up. Jane wanted to be Queen a little longer.”

Jake let himself flop backward onto the cot next to Dirk. “Do you think it all maybe meant something? Like wishful psycho bullshit?”

“You mean, you having experience running around across the planet on adventures while the rest of us were trapped in political wonderland? No, not in the slightest.” Dirk wrapped his arm around Jake’s shoulder and tugged him toward him until Jake settled in with his head in the crook of Dirk’s neck. “I mostly just think that the gods like to fuck with us.”

“Gods, huh?” Jake said with a snort.

“Yeah, gods of the outer ring,” Dirk said, matter-of-factly. Like he said everything. “Horrorterrors. They’re the ones who created this universe and made the dream bubbles for us to communicate. I think we just got one that was a particular piece of shit and wanted to have a good time, turn us into nonsense paper dolls for their sick adventures.”

“Ah, well. Hopefully we’ve moved on by the next time we have to sleep,” Jake said, Roxy’s hand suddenly finding its way into his hair and running her nails up, backwards, across his scalp. He sighed into Dirk’s collar. “I’d like to get some real rest for once. It never really feels right when I dream that stuff.”

“Yeah,” is Dirk’s simple reply, as Roxy’s index finger scratches lightly in the area behind his ear. On her other side Jane snores lightly, the sort of sound that always tells Jake that things are alright.

He lets himself drift off for just a little bit longer, and hopes to dream of nothing.

_________________

A childish story take,  
And, with a gentle hand,  
Lay it where Childhood's dreams are twined  
In Memory's mystic band. 

-Snoop Lion né Dogg

[Epilogue?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/651096/chapters/1185088)   



	12. The smith...

Now I embody every characteristic of the egotistic  
He knows, he's so fuckin' gifted

-Lewis Carroll

**Chapter 3**

“Well, sneaking in seems the reasonable thing to do,” Jake said. “Considering the, well, nature of your army here.”

“What do you mean? Roxy said.

Jake just pointed over to where a dog in guard uniform was marching in a neat circle, trying to catch its own tail.

“Oh yes, that,” Roxy said. “Well it’s decided, we’re going to see the Smith.”

Jake managed to wrestle his bag away from the ruffians before they headed out, just Roxy and him. She told him that the Smith was a bit skittish and it was best to approach him without a large entourage.

“Who is this Smith fellow anyway?” Jake asked as they snuck along a dark path.

“He’s like us, from outside Wonderland,” Roxy said.

“Oh, you’re from outside too?”

“Yeah. I don’t think they really have humans around here,” Roxy said. “At least not humans like us.”

“Huh,” Jake said. He wondered what she meant by that. “Why do you call him the Smith?”

“Because he works with metal,” Roxy said. “It’s kind of a simplistic way to put it, but no one around here really gets robots.”

“Robots?” Jake asked.

“Yeah, you know, robots,” Roxy said. She looked at Jake like he was remarkably dumb. “Metal people who walk and talk?”

“Out, automatons!” Jake said. “Why do you call them something so queer?”

“Where, exactly, are you from?” Roxy asked. “Or I guess I should be asking when.”

“I’m a world traveler, but my last known location was California in 1926,” Jake said. Roxy frowned. “How about you?”

“1985,” Roxy said.

“Oh,” Jake said. “Do they even have California then?”

“Yes, we still have California,” Roxy assured him. “It hasn’t fallen off into the ocean yet.”

“Well, that’s some sort of comfort I guess,” Jake said. “How about the Smith? You said he’s from outside as well.”

“He says... confusing things,” Roxy said. “You’ll see when you meet him.”

_________________

The Smith lived in what had probably once been a lovely meadow. Now it was a mess of discarded metal and traps. Roxy guided Jake through, jumping over tripwires with expert ease. Jake was very impressed.

“Who the fuck is he?” the Smith said.

“Good morning to you too, Dirk,” Roxy said in return. The Smith, Dirk, folded his arms in response. His face was impassive, perhaps because he was wearing strange triangular tinted glasses upon his face.

“I ask again, who the fuck is he?”

“I’m Jake Harley,” Jake said, stepping forward and stretching out a friendly hand. Dirk didn’t even look down at it and Jake awkwardly pulled it back. “Nice to meet you too.”

“Harley?” Dirk asked.

“Yeah, I know,” Roxy said. Her look was as unreadable as Dirk’s.

“What does that even mean?” Jake asked. “That’s my surname. It’s not a hard concept. unless you no longer have surnames in the future.”

“When does he think he’s from?” Dirk asked.

“The twenties,” Roxy answered.

“Think? I am from then!” Jake snapped. “You’re being quite rude, talking as if I’m not here.”

“Any head injuries lately, Jake?” Dirk asked.

“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” Jake said.

“I take that as a yes,” Dirk said.

“If you’re going to be like that I’ll just be leaving,” Jake said.

“You won’t make it ten feet,” Dirk said.

And indeed it was only eight before Jake was tangled in another net.

“Where did that even bloody come from?” he yelled in frustration. Roxy was snorting and even Dirk finally had an expression. Amusement.

“Hey Sawtooth, drag him in here,” Dirk said. “Me and Roxy have got to talk.”

Jake screamed in surprise as a giant automaton in a dark cloak grabbed him and manhandled his bound body into Dirk’s cottage.

“This has not been my day,” Jake muttered as he was dropped on the rug.

“You can only blame yourself, little man,” the automaton said.

“Christ! You can talk!”

“God he’s like a country bumpkin,” Roxy said. “So cute.”

“Stop squealing over the concussed idiot,” Dirk said. “If we’re going to hit the queen where it hurts we don’t have time for playing around.”

“I’m not concussed,” Jake said. Roxy and Dirk gave him a look. “I’ve been concussed before, I think I would know if I was now.”

“Exactly how many times before?” Roxy asked.

Jake just hmphed in response.

“So you want to sneak into the castle, huh?” Dirk said.

“That’s right,” Roxy said. “No way we can take on all the Queen’s guards in a full frontal assault.”

“A wise call,” Dirk said. “Listen, this is what we’re going to do...”

_________________

  
[Onwards...](http://archiveofourown.org/works/493965/chapters/1184992)   



	13. A direct assault...

You can be king, but watch the queen conquer

-Lewis Carroll

**Chapter 3**

“A direct assault!” Jake said, pumping his fist. “It’s the only way to show that queen who is really in charge around here.”

“She is,” a rat said. “She’s the queen.”

“No!” Jake said. “The people should be in charge. Well, animals. Animals and people. And whatever that guy over there is.” He paused. “The constituents.”

“What are constituents?” the rat asked.

“Well, you know. Democracy!” Jake stated firmly.

“Democracy!” the crowd agreed.

“Well, I can’t fault their enthusiasm,” Roxy said.

“Glad you’re with me, Roxy,” Jake said. “You’re quite the lady.”

“Weird,” Roxy said. “Never been called ‘lady’ without ‘little’ and ‘go to your room’ attached before.”

“Come on there, it’s time to rally the troops,” Jake said, thumping her on the back.

Rallying troops turned out to be a more difficult task than Jake expected. Rather like the old expression of “herding cats” only more literal because some of them actually were cats.

“We’re going to miss the coronation altogether if we don’t hurry!” Jake said.

“It’s not until sunset,” Roxy said. “We have time.”

“How far away is the castle?” Jake asked.

“Okay, we don’t have time,” Roxy admitted. “Alright, change of plans. We’re taking a small team, we’re going to hit her fast and stealthy, be away with that crown of hers before she knows it!”

“Her crown? Why do you want to steal that?” Jake asked.

“You’ll see,” Roxy said.

With their crack team of guerrilla fighters assembled they headed off toward the castle. As they neared they grew quieter and quieter, watching everywhere for guards. The absence of them was deeply suspicious. 

“Maybe they are all closer to the queen?” a snake suggested. “Pulled away from their posts for special coronation duty.”

“Maybe,” Roxy said. She was obviously unconvinced.

“Where would we find the Queen?” Jake asked. “This place is huge.”

“In the main garden,” Roxy said. “She loves those damn roses.”

Roxy seemed to know her way around the place. She must have spent ages gathering all the intel. Quite a lady, that Roxy Lalonde. Jake could feel himself becoming a tiny bit smitten.

“I didn’t know there was such a thing as blue roses,” Jake said as they slipped through a side garden filled with flowering topiaries.

“She has them painted,” Roxy said. “Now quiet, we’re almost there.”

They ducked down and inches along the ground until they were crouched behind a short shrubbery looking out into a large clearing where many strange creatures were gathering in front of an ornate throne. Jake’s eyes widened in surprise.

_________________

At the throne’s side laid a large white dog. His fur was freshly washed and well groomed.

“Halley!” Jake whispered. “Oh, in all the excitement I completely forgot about him.”

“That’s your dog?” Roxy whispered back.

“Yes!” Jake answered. “Though I could hardly recognize him without the usual dirt. This could be to our advantage. I can get him to tackle the queen for us.”

“I’m not sure that’s wise,” Roxy said. “They say she has a strange power over those near her. It comes from that blasted evil crown.”

“Poppycock,” Jake said. “Halley would never listen to some royal imposter over me, mysterious jewels or not!”

“Quiet!” Roxy hissed. “Here comes the Queen!”

“Why are we calling her the Queen if she’s not coronated yet?” Jake asked. “It’s a bit con-”

Roxy slapped her hand over his mouth to silence him. Jake took the hint and fell silent. On the far side of the garden a young woman entered through a beautiful arched hedge covered in blue roses. She was one of the most beautiful people Jake had ever seen.

“Wow,” Jake mouthed into Roxy’s palm.

“Alright guys,” Roxy whispered. “This is it.”

The Queen was a young woman with short black hair framing her delicate features. Her face, though lovely, was also sinister looking as it was lit by the red glow emanating from her tiara.

“She’s so wonderful,” Jake said, breathless.

“Don’t look at her crown!” Roxy snapped.

“But,” Jake protested.

“Stop!” Roxy whispered desperately. “Before she-”

But it was too late, because the Queen turned and smiled directly at them right before they were wrenched out of the bushes by her guards.

“Hello,” the Queen said. “Have you come for my party?”

Jake and Roxy and the rest of their band were dragged into the open garden as the Queen walked calmly up and sat on her throne, reaching over and giving Halley’s ears a good scratch.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” the Queen said. “I knew you’d come. I’ve been waiting for so long.”

“You’re a tyrant, Jane!” Roxy said. “You have to stop this.”

“No,” Jane said.

“Wait, you know each other?” Jake asked.

“Jane, please,” Roxy said.

“Roxy, you know how this has to end, same as me,” Jane said. Her tiara was glowing brighter and it made it seem like shadows were growing behind her throne. Or maybe shadows really were growing, it was hard to tell.

“Really, can someone explain to me what’s going on?” Jake asked.

The shadows grew and when they washed over Halley the dog raised his head and howled. Only it wasn’t Halley, his face was gone and he flickered green and then things got a bit odd as the ground tilted but only Jake fell, fingers trying to cling to the grass as he slid into the grasping shadows.

_________________

[Onwards...](http://archiveofourown.org/works/493965/chapters/1184995)


	14. Sneaking...

You will not control the threesome

-Lewis Carroll

**Chapter 4**

They crouched in the bushes of an ornate garden. Roxy had led the way, showing them the best shadows to dart between as they had infiltrated the palace grounds.

“You’re good at this,” Jake whispered.

“I used to live here,” Roxy answered. “It’s a long story, I’ll tell you it when this is over.”

“Alright,” Dirk said. “It’s almost sundown, the guards should be making their final sweep before the Queen comes. We can take three down and steal their uniform, no problem.”

“These are the elite guard, so don’t get cocky,” Roxy said.

“I’m never cocky,” Dirk said. “Get ready, here they come.”

It was a swift and efficient take down. Jake was surprised that these fumbling fellows were what passed for “elite” in Wonderland. But perhaps they were simply that good.

“This outfit is ridiculous,” Roxy said. “Blue hearts. How predictably Jane.”

“Jane?” Jake asked.

“The Queen,” Roxy answered. “We used to be friends.”

“What happened?” Jake asked.

“It’s not important,” Dirk said. “Come on, time is of the essence.”

Once they were in uniform they were able to walk through the gardens with no one impeding their progress. It was amazing what a change of clothes could do! They got into line with the other guards, holding their stolen lances perfectly vertically while waiting for the Queen to arrive.

She entered the central garden just as the sun dipped below the horizon, followed by the very nervous rabbit now dressed in a crisp blue uniform as well. She looked elegant in her blue gown, though it clashed with her red tiara. The rabbit looked like a nervous wreck. The Queen strode proudly and with purpose between the lines of guards. Jake held his breath as she passed but she didn’t even glance at him and the rabbit was too preoccupied with the papers he was juggling to glance up from his feet.

The Queen walked across the garden to a throne set on a low pedestal. She sat primly down and clapped her hands, starling the rabbit into dropping his armloads.

“Alright,” she said. “You can grab them now.”

Apparently the elite guard really could be effective when they tried.

“Come on Roxy,” the Queen said, lazily regarding them as they were restrained. “Did you really expect those disguises to work?”

“Only that it could get me close enough to do this!” Roxy said, twisting out of the guards’ grip effortlessly and lunging at the Queen with a knife.

“Holy crap!” Jake said.

It looked like the knife was going to connect, but inches away Roxy froze.

“Roxy, you’re smarter than this,” the Queen said, her tiara glowing red. Roxy slumped to the ground. “Now go to the dungeons like a good girl. I have business with this newcomer.”

_________________

Jake was tossed into the room and landed in a sprawl on the floor.

“Please leave us,” the Queen said. Jake heard the closing of the door behind him. When he lifted his head the Queen was staring down at him. He sat up and adjusted his collar, trying to regain some dignity.

“Your majesty,” Jake said when the Queen leaned down and put her hand on his jaw. “Your majesty, this is quite irregular.”

“Irregular?” the Queen asked.

“Yes, you know,” Jake paused and laughed nervously. “Though I’m flattered and would be dishonest if I said I’ve never been in this sort of spot before-”

“Awfully full of yourself, aren’t you?” the Queen said as she pushed on his chest until he tumbled backwards and had to catch himself with his hands. Jake swallowed hard.

“Wow your crown is pretty,” he said. “It’s all glowy.”

“Well, at least you have your looks,” the Queen said before kissing Jake forcefully.

The Queen was a very good kisser. Jake found himself falling under her spell without even a hint of a struggle, falling back on the floor and dragging her down on top of him. She wasted no time either, going right to unbuttoning his shirt and biting her way down his neck.

It was just then that the door was kicked open.

“Oh,” Roxy said. The Queen jerked away from Jake.

“It’s um, not what it looks like?” Jake tried.

“Do you need a minute alone with the evil dictator?” Dirk asked.

“I’d last more than a minute!” Jake said. “Wait, no. I didn’t say that.”

“Oh wow,” Roxy said. “You work as fast as ever, Janey.”

“Why thank you,” the Queen said. “Though I must admit, lover boy here is rather more susceptible than you were.”

“It’s the head injuries,” Dirk said.

“You’re doing the thing again,” Jake said. “Where you act like I’m not here.”

“Just settle down,” the Queen said. She pet Jake’s hair twice and he slumped, grinning dazedly. Wow she was so _pretty_.

“Stop ogling for five seconds, English,” Dirk snapped.

Jake ignored him because, well, his name wasn’t English. Allso the Queen wasn’t paying attention and he could just reach out and touch those soft looking-

“Hands!” the Queen said, slapping them away from her chest.

“Aw,” Jake said.

“Really, this is your plan?” Roxy asked. “Just, brain zap everyone into being your pets?”

“Well when you put it like _that_ it sounds a bit dim,” the Queen said. “But it just gets so lonely around here.”

“Have you,” Roxy said. “Crazy thought here. Brace yourselves.”

“Bracing,” Dirk said.

“Have you considered _being nice to people?_ ” Roxy asked.

“I’m perfectly nice!” the Queen said. She slapped Jake’s hands as they tried to wriggle up her sides. “I said watch it.”

“Put they’re so bouncy,” Jake said dreamily.

“I think you whammied him a bit too hard,” Dirk said. The Queen sighed.

“Alright, maybe you have a point,” the Queen said. She rose and offered a hand to Jake.

His brain snapped back.

“Oh my word! Your majesty I’m so sorry, no wait, that was you. I’m offended!”

“At least call me Jane,” she said. Jake looked at her hand and she raised them both up in surrender.

“What’s your play here, Jane?” Dirk asked.

“No play, it’s just time we put this pointless nonsense to rest and become friends again,” she said. “Don’t you want to be friends?”

_________________

It was another perfect afternoon in Wonderland. Jane was teaching her friends how to play croquet. Jake insisted he already knew how, but after several flamingo related injuries he had to admit there were some complexities he didn’t quite grasp.

“I can’t help but feel like I’m missing something,” Jake said as they sat having tea.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” she told him. “Right Dirk?

“Of course,” Dirk agreed. His eyes looked slightly glazed but it was probably just the lighting. Red clashed with orange.

“How about you, Roxy?” Jane asked. “Do you think Jake needs to worry about something?”

“Absolutely not,” Roxy said. She looked much better in her tiara than the boys did.

“You see?” Jane said, smiling. “Nothing is wrong at all. Now have some more tea.”

_________________

'Tis a priviledge high to have dinner and tea  
Along with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and me!

-Beyonce Knowles

[Epilogue?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/651096/chapters/1185092)   



	15. Lost...

Doctors say I'm the illest  
Cause I'm suffering from realness

-Lewis Carroll

**Chapter 4**

Jake was standing in a bedroom. Or at least there was a bed. The walls were covered in bright colorful posters that reminded him of ads for cinemas but more garish in every way. Everything was quite the mess, piles of bullets and cans strewn underfoot. If he concentrated he could hear the sounds of the jungle just outside.

“Finally with me, English?” the young man on the bed asked. He had to be around the same age as Jake. He was wiry and blonde and dressed very queer.

“I’m afraid you have me confused with someone else,” Jake said. “I’m Jake Harley.”

“No you’re not,” the man said. “You just want to be.”

“You know nothing about me,” Jake snapped. “I’m quite tired of absolutely everyone today being completely rude and argumentative and not making any sense. This is just all... bullhockey and tomfoolyfuckery and I want you to get out of my room immediately!”

“So you admit this is your room,” the man said, standing up. “I guess that’s progress.”

The man walked past Jake and as he passes Jake noticed that he wasn’t quite solid. He was flickering in and out and Jake couldn’t resist reaching out and just touching to see if any of this was real at all. When his hand connected things got- they got-

_Jake English was lying on his bed, his skulltop on, deep in conversation with Roxy. They were joking about Dirk and Jane’s name had just popped up on his chumroll and-_

Then Jake Harley was back in the room and Dirk had almost disappeared down the stairs.

“Hey, come back here!” Jake yelled after him. “You need to explain what’s going on!”

He ran down the steps after Dirk’s phantom, out to where the flickering boy was examining a pumpkin.

“You know already,” Dirk said. “Okay, you probably don’t. You have all the pieces but I doubt you’ve put it together yet.” He paused. “It isn’t really your brain we’re all in love with.”

“We?” Jake asked.

“Let’s take a walk,” Dirk said.

_________________

Dirk headed into the dense tropical forest and Jake followed behind. It was all so familiar and yet he was positive, absolutely positive, he had never been here before. But then again, jungles began all blurring together after you’d seen a few dozens of them.

_He was so sick of jungles and lurking white monsters. And the rain. God, when it rained it was like the world was ending, all sound and fury. He just wanted to crawl through his computer, to somewhere warm and safe. Maybe with Jane. Wouldn’t it have been great to live with Jane? Her dad sounded so nice, he’d love to have a dad like that, even if it would make Jane his sister and wouldn’t that be a bit awkward? And-_

“Is it all coming back to you yet?” Dirk asked.

“Stop being ridiculous, Dirk,” Jake said. “We’ve never- I’ve never-”

“But how do you know my name?” Dirk asked. “That’s where that thought was going, right?”

“Absolutely not,” Jake said.

“Obstinacy is not attractive,” Dirk said.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Jake said.

“Do you need me to define the word for you?”

“That’s not what I meant!”

Dirk just walked on. He seemed solid in the shadows but in the patches where the sun managed to break through the thick canopy he shimmered like a reflection on a pond.

“What are you?” Jake asked.

“We’ve been through this before, English,” Dirk said. “Did you hit your head? Oh wait, of course you did. You’re you. A life without head injuries just isn’t adventurous enough.”

“Hey now,” Jake said.

“Wake up, Jake!” Dirk yelled, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. “Come back to us!”

“Who is _us_ anyway?” Jake yelled right back.

“Do you have your bag with you, Jake?” Dirk asked.

“No, I left it- oh here it is,” Jake said. “I always have it with me. It has everything an adventurer needs.”

“Like crowns?” Dirk asked.

“It’s a gift,” Jake said.

“For who?” Dirk asked.

“For- for-” Jake began, but his mind kept slipping.

“Come on, this is getting tiresome,” Dirk said. “From now on you’re wearing a helmet if I have to hold you down and weld it to your head.

“That sounds deeply uncomfortable,” Jake said. Jake was distracted from continuing by movement in the brush. He reached for his holsters only to relax when he saw what it was.

“Halley!” he said. “You came back, good dog.”

“And the fucking dog,” Dirk groaned. “We will get you a damn pet. Honest. Jane will get over the tracking dirt through the house. I mean, she puts up with you doing it.”

“Halley come here,” Jake called, crouching down. “Where have you been?”

When Halley took a step forward the world shimmered. Another step and it stretched. A third and everything turned upside down once again.

_________________

As the world tumbled it all came rushing back. Jake had always imagined it would be a wretched feeling to be turned into someone else but it seemed turning back into yourself was even worse! As he tossed on the floor of the jungle his head throbbed with pain and his mind rebelled.

The whole thing was ridiculous, Jake knew it. He was Jake Harley, rugged adventurer, bravely hopping from continent to continent, cutting his way through jungles, raiding temples and tombs for the most glorious treasures. That’s who he was, not this scared little Jake English kid, huddling under his blankets every night hoping that his grandma would come back and make all the monsters disappear. That wasn’t him, it wasn’t!

“Jake,” Dirk said softly. “Jake, get up.”

“No,” Jake said. “Fuck you.”

“What, you’re just going to lie there having an identity crisis until the world ends again?” Dirk asked.

“Yes,” Jake said.

“Can’t say that’s the plan I’d go with,” Dirk said.

“Yes it is,” Jake said. “You’re me, right? This is in my head. So this is your plan too.”

“Jake.”

“Shut up.”

“Jake.”

“I’m not weak.”

“No one’s calling you weak,” Dirk said.

“Just go away,” Jake said.

“Can’t,” Dirk said. “Still you, remember?”

“Argh.”

“Come on, Jake,” Dirk said. “Get up. Go home.”

“I thought you were trying to tell me I was already home. Isn’t that how the book ends? I wake up and everything is just as horrible as before?” Jake asked.

“Try it and see.”

Dirk rose to his feet.

“I’m going now,” Dirk said. “Follow if you feel like it. Or stay alone and miserable forever. It’s up to you.”

And then he was gone.

_________________

Waking up was a difficult task and it hurt a lot. His head throbbed and his legs were itchy where they weren’t numb and he was terribly thirsty.

“Wahhhhwer,” he called. He squinted. His eyes felt sort of fuzzy and the light was nearly blinding. He tried again. “Wahwerer.”

“Jake!” Jane said, jumping up from her chair and rushing over to his bedside. “Don’t talk. Right, he’s not supposed to talk? I don’t know, I’ll go get the doctor.”

“Wuhwuh?” Jake asked.

“Water’s right here,” Roxy said. “Keep still, I think we can give you a sip without upsetting Nurse Crocker too terribly much.”

Roxy raised the glass to his lips. Drinking proved to be beyond him, half of the water dribbling down his chin and cheeks. Roxy wiped his face off with the corner of his sheet.

“Welcome back,” Dirk said. “You managed to fall off the roof attempting to rescue a stranded baby bird. It was very brave and completely idiotic. You’ve been unconscious a couple days.”

Jake tried to remember. God the itching was distracting. 

“Isaa-” Jake began.

“The bird is _fine_ ,” Dirk said. “Its fall was broken by your _soft internal organs._ ”

Jane came back, practically dragging the doctor behind her.

“See, awake!” she said. “Now do your, stuff. Doctor stuff.”

“Breathe, Jane,” Roxy said. “It’s going to be alright now.”

She pulled Jane to her chest, letting the other girl cry. Dirk came over and rubbed Jane’s back.

“I’m just so relieved,” Jane murmured. Roxy kissed her hair.

“Yeah, we missed you,” Dirk told Jake.

“Idiot,” Roxy added.

_________________

Thus grew the tale of Wonderland  
Thus slowly, one by one,  
Its quaint events were hammered out  
And now the tale is done.  
And home we steer, a merry crew,  
Beneath the setting sun. 

-Kanye West

[Epilogue?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/651096/chapters/1185070)   


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Journey To The Land of Bonus Content](https://archiveofourown.org/works/651096) by [dogtier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogtier/pseuds/dogtier)




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